Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/35

Rh Dar Hamads. Crossing to the western bank of the Nile early on the morning of April i, 1887, by ten o'clock we had loaded up and started on that journey to the Soudan, which was to take me twelve long years to complete.

When we had been two days on the road, I began to feel a little uneasy at the non-appearance of my camels; but thinking that maybe Gabou had purposely delayed starting so as to give them a stiff test in hard trotting, I comforted myself with this reflection, though as day after day passed, my anxiety became very real. On the night of April 7, we judged we must be close to Selima Wells, and sent out scouts to reconnoitre; they reached the wells, and returned saying that they could not find traces of any one having been there for some time. Our caravan reached the wells between nine and ten o'clock in the morning, and about midday, while we were occupied in watering the camels and preparing food, we heard a shot fired from the south-east, and shortly afterwards one of our scouts came in saying that he had been sighted by a party of about twenty men on camels; one of the men had fired at him at long range, and the whole party had then hurried off to the south.

A hurried conference was held; it was the general opinion that this party must be scouts of a larger one, and that they had gone off for the purpose of apprising their main body. Ismail decided upon pushing on at once. There was little time for me to consider what to do; to return to Wadi Haifa was out of the question, as Ismail could not spare any of his men as a